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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24734851">The painting session before the bonfire</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BittaWriting/pseuds/BittaWriting'>BittaWriting</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Portrait de la jeune fille en feu | Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:13:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24734851</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BittaWriting/pseuds/BittaWriting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The painting session before the bonfire scene. A pre-realisation moment of realisation I suppose! <br/>Considers the train of thought Mariane and Heloise are having as they watch each other during the painting.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Heloïse and Marianne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The painting session before the bonfire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Not sure if this lines up with the timeline at all or if it makes sense but I enjoyed writing it.</p><p>Sort of bounces back and forth between the minds of Heloise and Marianne in a moment where they start to come to some realisations about themselves. </p><p>Anyway, my first time writing anything so hopefully it's not too dull!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Painting her was not so much a study of light on skin, shadow under eye, fall of hair, swoop of neck or furrow of brow. These details of shape were nearly inconsequential. Painting Heloise was a visceral task; it was not about the physical facts of form, it was about how it felt to be in her presence. To capture Heloise, truly, was an exercise of considering exactly that feeling, watching the way the real world seemed to fold away around her, as if to give her presence more emphasis. Marianne found it hard to even understand what she saw, like there was a blur, undefined, around Heloise’s body, setting her apart from reality, superimposed into every space she inhabited, the feeling that she was always wishing to tear away from her present. This was the task, to capture the gasp trapped in your throat when you first saw her. Her starkness, her abrupt and angular manner. One could not paint that by simply looking at Heloise, you had to understand her rhythm, how she moved out of time with the world around her. On face she was hard, angry, unyielding, but the smallest lift of that veil, intimated the intelligence and vibrancy which she kept from the world.</p><p>How do you illustrate the stubborn curl of a lip, how do you show the burning of words she wishes to say? What do the eyes do that allow her biting intelligence and fierce sadness to be both masked and at times, so apparent? How does the set of her shoulders, her posture, capture her severity and softness? Painting Heloise was a study of that flickering light, so often smouldering but never put out. </p><p>Marianne considered this often as she moved around her canvas, surveying the flicks of paint that she hoped would catch this atmospheric quality. In fact hoped was not a strong enough feeling, Marianne burned with this desire to show how she understood Heloise. “Is this how you see me?”, Heloise’s question echoed in her head, the pain she had felt at disappointing this woman, the embarrassment she had felt for falling so short and being so oblivious. No, this time, with Heloise in front of her, it had to be different. It amazed Marianne how Heloise’s compliance in finally posing, actually made her feel under more pressure. Perhaps she felt now that this portrait was for Heloise and not her mother, or suitor, or anyone else. Perhaps Marianne felt the portrait now belonged to them, to her and Heloise. She glanced up and over the canvas, glanced back, glanced up, and back again, touched the brush to the painted figure, imbued energy in the detail of her jaw, taught. She looked again, Heloise looking back at her, it became trancelike. </p><p>Marianne thought about their first session with Heloise posing often. She had been so fervent, so eager to shield herself with the easel, begin her work. “Look at me”, she had directed from behind the canvas and Heloise lifted her eyes. That moment had caught Marianne and shaken her, any semblance of control she had felt was swiftly dismantled by Heloise’s look. Later that evening, in front of the fire, Marianne had hugged her knees tight to her chest, remembering the way she had been so disarmed by the woman in front of her. She considered Heloise, why was she so unnerving? How did she effect Marianne so? The following sessions had been less tense, Heloise seemed less intent on flustering Marianne and as the painting progressed Marianne felt more in control of herself once again. She sank into her work, sank into the space they shared, hardly noticing the time going by.</p><p>They fell into an easy pattern, Heloise arriving to her room in the morning, draped in emerald. While Marianne worked and they were mostly silent, the rustling of her clothes and scuffing of her small steps in and out from the easel fading into a rhythm, sometimes accompanied by faint bird song through the window. The tinkling of the paintbrush as Marianne swirled it in a small jar of water. Sophie would arrive at regular intervals, reminding them to pause for food and water, and when the light faded Marianne would survey her work and place her brushes down. Heloise came to know these moments, she would wait until Marianne looked up without returning her eyes to the painting, knowing she could then move. Marianne insisted on helping her down from her perch, taking her arm for support and Heloise noted that it was pleasant to feel her touch. It was warm and the room was bright, flecks of dust catching in the sunlight and lilting up with the air. And so they were, in this still space.</p><p>Marianne focused on small muscles around Heloise’s neck, her jaw, space below her ear. The painter was methodical, working up, following the curvature of Heloise, shaking herself when she looked too closely at her lips, and not yet ready to move to Heloise’s eyes. As Heloise watched Marianne, she felt a peculiar softness, noting the flecks of paint that had migrated onto the woman’s hands and which she had passed on to her cheek and nose when absently brushing hair behind her ear. Heloise performed her own analysis as she sat. She found herself enjoying the concentration on Marianne’s face, the focus in her dark eyes, small moments of indignation when a brush stroke went awry. When Marianne disappeared in behind the canvas for short moments, Heloise waited to see her face peer over the top edge again, determined that Marianne would always see her looking too. She was patient, allowing the artist to work, tracing Marianne’s gaze, noting her attention and wondering what the other woman saw when she looked at her. It was this thought that quite suddenly caught Heloise off guard. She was not a self conscious person, but at this moment, she could not comprehend the tenderness she felt and the sudden desire to be seen.</p><p>Marianne had dipped behind the canvas, but when she returned to glance back and critique her latest brushwork, Heloise’s demeanour had changed. She was staring now, direct, startling and obvious, nearly brazen. This time Marianne’s eyes did not flicker back to her work. They looked at each other. Heloise held her pose, as if challenging Marianne, pulling her out of her activity, forcing her to engage with the moment. There was a charged stillness, Marianne felt that blurring she always saw around Heloise extend towards her, as if the space between them was itself alive. Slowly Marianne’s hand, still holding her paintbrush drifted down to her side. Her throat felt tight and she was sure Heloise noticed as she let out a tight exhalation. </p><p>“I’m sorry, I’ve kept you too long again today” she manages, exhaling hurriedly through her mouth. Heloïse seems to stiffen at this acknowledgement, some barely perceivable stress crackles through her expression. The woman seemed startled, as if she hadn’t expected Marianne to notice the unspoken shift. Marianne doesn’t quite understand it, Heloise looked as if she herself was shaken by whatever thought she had experienced. She hadn’t spoken but had drawn her lower lip in between her teeth. Heloise was… nervous? Marianne found herself thinking. All at once she felt her chest tighten, down along her sternum a shivering. She wanted to move, close the space between them, take whatever worry Heloise was bearing and soothe her - “How!” She would exclaim into her ear, “How could you be nervous around me and not I around you?!” It was a jolting thrashing feeling, knowing so undoubtedly that she wanted to hold her, but surely this could not be what Heloise was thinking too? Surely she would not want Marianne’s arms around her body. And yet, Marianne in a lapse of control shifted her weight infinitesimally forward, the floorboard creaked as the weight transferred to her front foot and just like that the reverie was broken.</p><p>“No, I.. I need water” Heloise, so strong and gravely is her usual tone, sounds nearly apologetic. She still hasn’t moved, looking at Marianne, fixated as if she has seen someone she did not expect had suddenly appeared in front of her. </p><p>Marianne’s mouth has dried too, having left her lips parted, afraid to move after she last spoke. “Of course, you need to drink”.</p><p>Heloise jaw becomes taught as she clamps her teeth together, she nods, finally breaking their stare. Taking fistfuls of the green fabric into her hands she leaves her elevated perch and makes her way to the door. Marianne follows with her eyes and scarcely breaths. </p><p>“Marianne, I will see you for the bonfire?”, Heloise has turned sharply, hand on the door. Marianne has no choice but to meet her eyes, a new fervour in them. Heat rises through the vessels of her neck, her cheeks.</p><p>“Yes Heloise” Marianne nearly catches on her name, has she ever said it before? How has she not! Oh how she wishes Heloise would call her by her name again. </p><p>There, the faintest flicker of a smile, the haze of something like heat and hope dancing on Heloise’s cheek, and then she’s gone. Marianne is left watching the space that Heloise had occupied, listening again and again to the sound of her name on Heloise’s lips.</p>
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